Etty Hillesum Quotes

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that's not too awful either, but never, never give up.

I would be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.

All disasters stem from us. Why is there a war? Perhaps because now and then I might be inclined to snap at my neighbour. Because I and my neighbour and everyone else do not have enough love. Yet we could fight war and all its excrescences by releasing each day, the love which is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live.

How rash to assert that man shapes his own destiny. All he can do is determine his inner responses.

Here, beside this great black surface that is my desk, I feel as though I am on a desert island.

Everything is chance, or nothing is chance. If I believed the first, I would be unable to live on, but I am not yet fully convinced of the second.

And now that I don't want to own anything any more and am free, now I suddenly own everything, now my inner riches are immeasurable.